Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-06-25
A L FOR PLEASURE.
A. L. s. IN CALIFORNIA PATRON.

take a sort OF uellgnt speaking MeI-
aphorically) in closing its shutters,
pulling down its blinds and then
shaking our. heads d~isconsolately we
murmer, +" there is no sun today, it
is raining, and oh, how sadly the
wind moans!"
Foolish mortals that we are! If
we only knew it, the sky is blue and
cloudless, the sunlight is flooding all
nature with gladness, the birds are
singing merily and yet'we grow pale
and SILVER. Alas! few of us have
the gift of extracting otto from the
roses. in a sort of blind u%nreasoning
fashion, we expect the precious ex-
tract t. place itself on our table, bot
tied and labeled, ready to serve u
pleasure.
If pleasure will not come to us I'M
asked, we must seek it,force it, man.
ufacture .it-yea cut, stitch, and mod
ell it by the honest labor of our
brow-work for it, dig for it, as the
miner does for gold and then when
we hold the shining nugget in our
hands, let us rejoice in our triumAh,
and deem it worth the struggle.
Monotony, whether it be occupa-
ton or duty or self-imposed is stag
nation-stagnation of all our highest
faculties-moral paralysis no less to
be dreaded than that physical paraly-
sis which lays us out a mass of
breathing helplessness. We may
perform our daily routine conscien-
tiously, attend to our religious duties
with unfailing regularity, do by our
neighbor as we would be done by,
and yet feel that after all life is a
long and dreary thing. The coming
years unrOll themselves before us,
like a stretch of dirty road with only
the sign posts of advancing age to
mark how near we are to the end,
and hope itself grows sickly in the
barren soil and refuses to bear bios
SONS. Yet we cherish the poor with
cred blades as they shoot up,
try refresh ourselves as best we Dan,
and ere long our jaded appetite Graves
for no more. This is life for too many
of us, and we repeat again it is a life
which we make for ourselves. We
must bear the burden of the past, we
walk in the shadow of the future, but
we live, live only in the present. 1t
is only today which is ours, the glori.
Gus, great now!
Let us grasp it as it fees let us
snatch from it all that it holds o.
sweetness and sunshine !; let us cul,
the fairest flowers, and then, only
then let us throw it from us, as We
would the petals of a rose, and cry
exultingly "Thou art faded, but
thy beauty belonged to us; thou ar
dead, but thy fragrance will evel
live; faint, yet sweet, lingering ovel
past memories, stealing into future
pains, but ever, ever there! ="
What sophistry is this, you ask
1t is no sophistry, it is religion-re
ligion as true as the God above us, a!
true as the word which preclaims
Him. Can He not be as we'll served
in singing as in signing? Is not
clear, ringing laugh as acceptable a
canting groans?
We advocate nothing that may
reap a whirlwind of dismay, caus,
the thunder cloud Of bitterness Il
burst over us, or the forked lightnin,
of self-reproach to blast us with it
fires. But we do protect agains
mental deafness, blindness, inactivity
Pleasure is a duty, a light we hav0
no right to hide under a bushel, ant
then complain we grope in darkness
And what is pleasure? All, al
that draws us from ourselves, as int
asphere of purer, clearer atmospher
than that of our daily life. All, al
that causes is to forget the sordit
caresd and turmoil around us. All
all that makes the eyes sparkle, tn
cheeks flush, the heart beat witt
happy emotion; that seems to Civ
us wings to soa into the realms c
highest possibilities. Music, drama
art, literature, these are the pleasure
that lie at our feet, and yet we wi
not stoop to grasp them. We fear t
ruff1e the placid-no the stagnan
waters of our being. We fear to leav
the hemmed-in valley of the con
monplace, lest the rushing mountai
breeze should stir our sleepy pulse
We prefer paralysis to movement.
twilight to sunshine, death to quick
ness.
Good, wholesome pleasure is OF
right. 1t must be ours at every sal